You know when something is going to come back and bite you in the backside? Many, many years ago, I got myself a US iTunes account. I’m in the UK but you can or at least could get a US one if you had an address in the States, which I do. (I’ve a correspondence address for a business.) Apple really likes you to have a credit card but won’t take international ones. Only, you can or at least could say you’d do that bit later and in the meantime, enjoy any of the free downloads or to up the account with US iTunes gift cards.

The gift cards have got a lot harder to use recently. You used to be able to buy digital gift cards online internationally but Apple now blocks that. I’ve resorted to buying some when in the States or even getting friends there to buy them, just so I could get the latest series of Leverage earlier than I would in the UK. (The show is cancelled now but for a time it was running here a year behind the States. A year.)

But the freebies work fine. And they are the really big advantage of the US store. American iTunes is replete with freebies and most especially so in television. Far, far and three times far more than the UK store gets. Come the start of the new season in September, come many shows offering their pilot episodes for free. I can’t count how many series I’ve tried because the pilot was free. And I can’t count how many seasons I’ve then gone on to buy. (This is exactly how I got hooked on Leverage, for instance.)

But.

If you do this, if you have both a US and a UK iTunes Store account you will go spare. You will go mad. Which store are you in now? Is that app showing me a price because I’m not in the store I first bought it in? Updates get in a right tizzy too. It’s all small stuff that adds up.

And today it’s added up more.

For some years, Apple has done a 12 Days of Christmas promotion and, very unusually, it has excluded the USA. Not this time. This year, America gets it too: one free gift each day from December 26. There will be music singles, there will be at least one book, you can bet there’ll be a game, probably a movie. No idea what or when, but they arrive once a day in that season and then they vanish. One day each, no exceptions. There are always many disappointments but in any one year you will get a couple of things that are well worth having.

Each year, Apple releases the 12 Days of Christmas app in early to mid-December and it sits there until the first day a gift is due – except invariably Apple releases something early. It’s done that today. Today you can get an early gift of a song called No Better by Lorde.

Or I think you can. I think you can get that if you have a US account. I don’t know because this poor little 12 Days of Christmas app is looking at me and asking what the hell is going on with all these accounts. Right now it won’t let me try this single because, for sure, my account details are fried. For some reason I’m having trouble logging out of the UK store and in to the US one on my iPhone and I’ll try it again later. I’m not fussed about a single by a band I’ve never heard a single from, but I hope to get this sorted by the time the proper 12 Days start. I’ve enjoyed the anticipation of what each day will bring and I hope I still get to.

If you are sensible and normal – you don’t look sensible or normal but I think you can pretend when necessary – then do get the free 12 Days of Christmas app for your country. And today you may be able to try out this Lorde lot. Let me know if I’m missing out. Here’s the 12 Days app link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/12-days-of-gifts/id777716569?mt=8